


Ordinary Days

by Rohirrim_Writer



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: 1940's, Air Force Hans, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - World War II, Arranged Marriage, Background Elsa/honeymaren, Dog Sven (Disney), Elements of Mail Order Bride Trope, F/F, F/M, Farmer Kristoff, Internment Camps, Kristanna, Movie: Frozen (2013), Past Anna/Hans (Disney), Period-Typical Racism, Pregnant Anna (Disney), Reverend Agnarr, Reverend Kai, Slow Burn, Soldier Hans, The Magic of Ordinary Days AU, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 18,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23452126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rohirrim_Writer/pseuds/Rohirrim_Writer
Summary: Amidst the backdrop of WWII, Anna Arendelle must navigate a changing world climate and her own changing life.Kristoff Bjorgman is a simple man running his family farm after the death of his brother at Pearl Harbor.When their two paths collide, can they learn to love each other and leave the past behind?
Relationships: Agnarr/Iduna (Disney), Anna/Hans (Disney), Anna/Kristoff (Disney), Elsa/Honeymaren (Disney), Gerda/Kai (Disney: Frozen), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 63
Kudos: 68





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Kristanna fic. I've got a lot planned. It's based off of the movie The Magic of Ordinary Days.  
> I'll be updating every Thursday. The majority of this story will be rated T. I will mark in the notes if a chapter has content rated above.  
> Thanks to my beta Multifangirl.  
> Happy reading!
> 
> *AO3 Isn't letting me add chapters or list this work as uncompleted. It will be a MULTICHAPTER fic. I anticipate it being around 20k completed. Ignore the 1/1 status!

As the familiarity of deciduous trees and rolling hills gave way to flat farmland, the finality of her situation finally seemed to sink in. Home was far behind her now. Perhaps home had been gone long before her father took her into his study to condemn her and everything her life had become. Perhaps home had been lost to her since her mother had died or in the long stretches of silence while she waited for moments of wakefulness, lucidity, during her mother’s illness that never seemed to come. 

_ “If your mother were alive, she’d think this was best.” _ What did her father know of her mother’s wishes? What did he know of love? How many times had he spoken the words, “in sickness and in health” at the pulpit, at the altar, and let their meaning be hollow? 

_ “You may think this is a mean supper, but you chose it.”  _ Did the bonds of love not extend to children, as he abandoned her now, like he abandoned her long ago to empty halls? Her father’s love only knew how to quote scripture. 

Raucous laughter startled her from her thoughts. She brought her gaze from the blurred landscape out the window to the group of young men gathered at the front of the train car. Their uniforms gave them all a similar appearance, a familiar appearance. She found that she had once again been fingering the locket at her throat with a gloved hand. As if willing the image within to materialize before her. But the men in before her remained strangers. 

_ “Whatever father said to you, don’t take it to heart.”  _ Elsa didn’t understand what it was like to be on the receiving end of his ire. Sheltered away in finishing schools, Elsa had set a precedent that Anna was expected to accomplish. Still, her words offered some comfort. 

_ “Here, Maren and I got you a little something. For later.” Elsa’s delicate, gloved fingers handed over a small white box topped with a large bow.  _ Anna appreciated the gesture, but she wished for  _ more _ . The gift hardly made up for everything that went unsaid between them. She didn’t know the next time she would see her sister, despite having just gotten her back in her life. 

Still, she had gotten up that morning and dressed her best. Her hair elegantly and meticulously coiffed. She wore a matching cap and gloves, and a pearl ended hat pin that had belonged to her mother. Ignoring the part of her that wanted...wanted more than what life had given her. 

When she got off the train amid steam and smoke and clamouring steps she suddenly felt overdressed. Everyone on the platform was dressed in worn tweed and denim. Everyone except the man she was there to meet. Dressed in all black save for the tiny vicar’s collar, Reverend Kai met her almost as soon as she stepped onto the platform. 

“Anna!” He called over the din, moving in to grab her bags. “Let me take those off you.” 

She felt bereft without her suitcase to cling to, nothing but her tiny clutch in her hand. Strange that all her belongings should be able to be carried in two hands. She tried to think of what to say, what she  _ should  _ say, but luckily the Reverend seemed to speak for the two of them. 

“You look so much like your mother. My wife and I were saddened to hear of your loss. Is this it?” He gestured with her suitcase, swinging it slightly in the air. 

“Thank you.” Though why she should have to thank this man for reminding her of the grief of her mother’s passing now of all times was beyond her. Still, she understood the sentiment. Anna, always understanding of the sentiment. Always being polite and gracious. Anna, always waiting for someone to think of her. Look where that had gotten her. 

“For now, this is all.” She answered. She looked around at the dusty railroad station, a far cry from her Virginian home.  _ For now, this is all.  _

“Do you need to use the station services? I’m afraid it’s a long drive yet.” Anna nodded gratefully and made her way to them. Once inside, she did gratefully relieve herself. Already her body had begun to change in ways she didn’t recognize. 

At the sink, with shaking hands she went to rearrange the tortoiseshell comb in her hair, but it fell to the floor. She bent to pick it up, and her head spun, She steadied herself against the lip of the sink. Taking several deep breaths she faced herself in the mirror. 

Her lipstick remained sharp and red, everything perfectly in its place. She looked the same as the day before and the day before that. Looking the same and being the same were two different things. Anna felt different. Anna was different. 

She smoothed a hand down the front of her belly, reminding herself again of why she was here. With steady hands, she slipped the comb back into place, and opened the door. 

It took an hour to get to the Reverend’s house. It was a small home connected to the chapel by a small hallway with a locking door for privacy. Convenient, she supposed, for the Reverend and his wife. Convenient, she supposed, if you were marrying the harlot daughter of your colleague to a stranger, too. 

She scarcely had time to take in the small room, the piano, and the parlor seating, because it was so dominated by a great, hulking, brute of a man. His blonde hair hung almost into his eyes, and brushed his collar in the back. His shoulders stretched impossibly wide, even hunched in on himself as they were. He held a hat in his hands, in front of himself, almost as though he was trying to hide himself behind it. It was almost enough to make Anna smile, like a bull trying to hide behind an aspen tree.

“Mr. Kristoff Bjorgman, this is Anna Arendelle.” When he stepped forward to shake her hand, he became even larger, towering over her. For all of that, he didn’t seem to be capable of meeting her eyes. He reached out his hand to take hers nonetheless. His hand dwarfed her own, and even through the silken fabric of her glove she could feel the rough-hewn callouses his life as a farmer had rendered him. 

“ _ No gasoline shortage for farmers. No sugar shortage either.”  _ The Reverend had said in the long car ride over. As if it would somehow make marrying a stranger easier, better. Her freedom for unrationed sugar. 

“Kristoff’s sister is waiting in the church.” Gerda, the Reverend’s wife, spoke quietly, but kindly. She seemed to be the only one excited for the proceedings. Just an hour ago Anna had felt terribly unprepared and overdressed for her new life. Now she looked down at her gossamer dress, white with sprigs of lavender printed on it as if by watercolor. Her lavender coat, and tiny pinned boutonniere of flowers all seemed a mockery. All of her childhood imaginings of lacey white dresses and long veils were far behind her now. 

“We’ll leave you two to get acquainted a moment.” She supposed a moment was all they had. Her mind raced with what she should ask him. What did one ask a man they just met, moments from their marriage? Why would he do this? Did he even like her? What did he expect of her? God, what did she expect of  _ him?  _

“Kristoff, why don’t you pour her some lemonade?” Gerda chorused as Reverend Kai corralled her out the door. Kristoff nodded and moved to a tray that had been laid out on the table. With his back turned to her, Anna could only hear the clinking of the pitcher against the glass, as he poured her some lemonade with shaking hands. 

It exasperated Anna somehow. She had quashed her own heartache and fear. She stood tall and ready to do what had to be done, why could he not do the same? Still, she took the glass when he offered it, drinking none. Instead steeling herself to meet his eyes for the first time. 

“Mr. Bjorgman-” She began, only to be cut off. 

“Kristoff, please.” It was the first she had heard him speak. It was a honeyed baritone. A nice voice, a kind voice. If Anna could trust her intuition anymore. If anything she was wiser now, maybe it was more reliable now than ever before. 

“Kristoff…” She tested the word in her mouth, weighed her words in her mind. “Now that you’ve had a chance to meet me. Do you have any doubts?” 

Her words caused him to pull a little at his collar. He wore no tie and she realized he must not wear clothes like these very often, by the amount of discomfort he was obviously in. She wondered what he normally looked like, dressed like. His neck almost looked too thick for the buttoned collar of his faded green shirt. It was tanned golden-honey all the way down, and clean shaven showing off a couple of freckles. They mostly scattered along the bridge of his nose, from working out in the hot sun. Unlike her own, which came from birth and stretched along the entirety of her body. 

“Having second thoughts?” A small smirk tugged the corner of his mouth. 

“Do you think you will be able to love the baby?” If he said no, then she would answer yes. Everything was for the baby and if he couldn’t love them, then what was it all for? 

Then he met her gaze for the first time, holding it there to speak the words straight into her. 

“I already do.” His eyes looked almost gold in the late noon light. He wanted to believe him. Wanted to  _ hope  _ for something,  _ anything _ . But everything felt all wrong. How could she ever have a life with this man when it was built on a lie?

It was more than she should hope for. Yet, there remained so much still unsaid. How could he marry someone without knowing? How could he just open his arms to her while she carried another man’s child? Didn’t he want to know if the child had been born out of love?

“Is there anything you want to ask me?” She whispered, despite it being just the two of them.  _ Yes,  _ she begged. _ Say yes.  _

“No.”

That was that then. She didn’t know why it left her feeling so disappointed. 

“You’re-you’re so fine I can’t believe no man…” He cleared his throat, a slight blush spreading up from the collar of his shirt. “I can’t believe any man would do this to you.” 

_ Do this to you.  _ Anna knew he meant it as a compliment. Knew she should be flattered and move on, but she couldn’t help the slight shake of her head. How little this man understood. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be alternating perspectives between Anna and Kristoff every chapter.  
> This is kind of a short chapter, but I had a hard time writing this one this week, I figured something was better than nothing.

“And do you, Kristoff Henrik Bjorgman, take Anna to be your lawfully wedded wife?” The Reverend asked. 

“I do.” What else could he say? He’d been flabbergasted from the first moment he saw her. He’d probably looked the fool. Even now, he couldn’t stop his palms from sweating. He’d spent the whole time thinking about how beautiful she looked, how refined, and what could a woman like that possibly want with a man like him?

She stood beside him, hands clasped around the handle of her beautiful purse, something so fancy he wouldn’t even begin to know how to go about procuring something similar for her. 

“The rings?” The Reverend prompted, looking to him. He’d been looking at the floor, at a knot in the wood that let him see her dainty, heeled feet out of the corner of his eye, and had been trying not to be distracted by the silken finish of her stockinged ankle. 

He was looking at the Reverend now. Looking back at Bulda and Cliff, feeling the sweat beginning to drip down his neck. 

“I didn’t-” He doesn’t know how to answer him. It’s not that he hadn’t thought of getting rings and it’s certainly not that he didn’t want them, but he hadn’t even been sure that she would go through with it. Kristoff knew he would, no matter what. He was a man of his word, but he wouldn’t have held it against her if she had walked into the Reverend’s modest home, took one good look at him, and walked straight back out. 

“I don’t have any rings.” He felt ashamed now. Here she was on her wedding day, looking prettier than he’d ever seen any woman look in his life, and he didn’t even have a ring for her. 

“I don’t need one.” She’s moved a little closer, hand coming up almost to his chest, before she catches herself, and brings it back to her side. It would have been the first time they touched, the hand that he should have been slipping his ring on, sitting soft and warm on his chest. It would look so delicate there. 

“It’s fine.” Bulda whispered from behind them and that somehow makes it  _ worse _ . He’s mentally kicking himself while Reverend Kai moves on to the final part of their vows and he forces himself to listen, to  _ remember _ , so that maybe someday he can tell the story to their child. 

He wants to brand the words on his skin as the Reverend implores them to give one another hope where there is sorrow, strength when there is weakness, faith and understanding when there is confusion or doubt. God knows there will be. He’s known this woman for all of ten minutes and he’s already at a loss. He doesn’t know quite what to do or say and what he does seems wrong. But he wants to get it right. 

“Amen.” Bulda is the only one to say it. Kristoff hasn’t quite found his voice yet and then Reverend Kai is moving on and he’s missed his chance. 

_ Amen _ .

“I now pronounce you husband and wife.” 

This is where he would kiss her. This is where he’s supposed to take his beautiful new bride and seal their vows with a physical expression of love. He thinks of her lips, ruby red and refined, and how they might feel on his. Wonders what she’d think of his, wind chapped from long days on the tractor under the hot sun. 

He can feel her, looking at him. He turns a little, just to see what she looks like. Some foolish part of him hoping that  _ maybe _ she’s waiting for him. 

She looks terrified and like she’s trying very hard not to show it. He looks back at that spot on the ground. 

“Bulda! Cliff! If you’ll please sign as witnesses.” Reverend Kai gestures to the altar, where the marriage license rests. Gerda starts playing “How Gentle God’s Commands” on the organ and Kristoff can’t help but feel the sting of it. 

He wants something, anything, to make this day a little less ordinary. 

Thank goodness for his sister, who never seemed to run out of enthusiasm. There’s six people in the room and she’s the only one treating it like a wedding. 

Bulda’s friendly nature carried them through till they went outside. He’d hung back with his brother-in-law. Cliff had given him a firm clap on the shoulder and a congratulations, before asking him how his crops were doing. Kristoff leaned into the familiarity of harvests and seeding with gratitude. 

“We didn’t bring the children, we thought we’d give you a chance to get settled in.” He overhears his sister as he’s putting Anna’s-his wife’s-suitcase into the truck bed. Bless Bulda for being tactful, if only this once. As if the long train ride is the cause of Anna’s discomfort and not the complete upheaval of her life. 

Kristoff’s already getting in the cab when Bulda called out to him. 

“Oh-Kristoff, hold on!” She ran after Cliff, who is pulling what Kristoff knows is one of her award winning casseroles out of their Chevy. It’s wrapped in gingham to keep the heat in and she places it right in Anna’s lap where she’s sitting in the passenger's seat. 

“A little casserole for supper. We thought you might be tired after all your travels.” It’s a blessing really. They’ve got a ride ahead of them still, and when they get to the house it’ll be too late to start anything themselves. 

“Now Kristoff, you bring Anna over to meet the family real soon.” Bulda said as she shut the cab door. Cliff moved up behind her, his arm going around her waist naturally as they saw them off. It’s not exactly church bells and tossed rice. The window framed them in like a picture. It’s a painful reminder of what his marriage is not as he sees his sister, happy in her marriage of twenty years. 

“Welcome to the family.” Cliff said with a final wave. 

It’s nice making the trip back to the farm with a companion. The quiet and the bouncing and rolling of the truck soothe his knotted up nerves. He watched his fields rolling by, letting a feeling of pride swell in his chest. Wondered if his kid will love the land like he does.

It’s just been him up at the house for a long time now. He fully acknowledges the isolation has left him a little socially impaired. He’s reserved by nature, but reclusive by happenstance. 

The potatoes are looking good this year. They’ll be able to get a profitable harvest this year. With any luck, he might be able to put a little away, they’ll be needing it, with the baby on the way. He didn’t know what sorts of things babies needed, but he imagined there’d be a lot of it. 

“-neighbors?” He’s missed the beginning of whatever she’s said. The sound of the truck and his own thoughts drowning out her voice. She’s quieter than anybody else that’s been in that seat. Cliff’s always just about yelling anyway and Bulda’s voice naturally carries. Anna’s voice is like the Lark Bunting that flit around the trees where he takes lunch under the shade. 

“Hmm?” She didn’t seem to mind. She tilted her head toward the window, gesturing to the open landscape. It’s an elegant gesture. 

“Your neighbors, who are they?” 

‘Your’ not our. It’s like a bucket of cold water. For him, he’s gaining a partner. For her, she’s losing everything. He can see that she’s trying. She looked hopeful? Or maybe he’s just seeing what he wants to be seeing. 

“Well,” he clears his throat, “my sister and Cliff live about 8 miles that-a-way.” He had to look back at the road, but he can see the realization dawning on her face. It’s like a sunset, bright, cheery sunshine giving way to a starless, dark sky. They drove in silence the rest of the way. 


	3. Anna's POV

When they come to a stop, it’s in front of an old, faded yellow farmhouse. She can see where it had once been beautiful, but now it looks like much of the rest of this part of the country, time forgotten and weather-beaten. She wonders how long it will take before she looks like this too. 

She steps out of the truck, onto the dirt drive, scattered with bits of windblown hay. She looks out of place, feels out of place, tries not to think of just how out of place she  _ is _ . 

Kristoff grabs Bulda’s dish and comes around the truck. He’s watching her, she can feel it.

There’s a great red barn a few hundred yards away, with a green roof. It looks like the ones back home, away from the city, but it lacks the green of  _ trees  _ and  _ grass _ . There are few trees around, tall and spindly aspens and cottonwoods that haven’t quite grown to maturity. The only green to break up the brown of the dirt and the blue of the sky as far as the eye can see is the fields. Maybe one day she will learn to see it’s beauty.

She hears a distant barking and it shocks her from her careful catalogueing of her new home. She realizes how silly she must look. She feels like a child again, seeing the ocean for the first time. She remembers the water with a pang. This place doesn’t look like it has a body of water within 100 miles. Yet another thing she will have to learn to get by without it. 

“Here, let me take that.” She took the dish from Kristoff’s hands so he could grab her suitcase from the bed of the truck. They walk across the dry, brittle remains of a garden to the porch. 

“Was this your mother’s garden?” She asks, searching for conversation that will pull him from his shell for more than a few moments. 

“Uh, yes it was.” She wants to retreat back into herself as well, feeling as though everything she does, everything she says is somehow wrong. She wonders that this is the moment all the years of her mother’s careful training would fail her. She wishes for Elsa’s impeccable manners. 

“Someone sounds unhappy.” The barking from the shed next to the house gets louder as they pass by and she wonders as to what sort of creature is making such a noise. 

“Oh that’s just the dog. I put him in the shed so he wouldn’t jump on you.” She looks down at her dress, the fine white chiffon. She thinks it would be worth it to have it ruined to have someone be excited to see her. 

Dry rose bushes clinging to life on the front trellis and a particularly persistent vine of what looks to be honeysuckle snake up a pillar. The signs of a once thriving home are all there, hidden in plain sight. One only had to dig them up. 

Kristoff lingers by the stairs, waiting for her to go first. She can feel his hand lingering at her back, hovering without touching. How little he knew of women and child bearing, to think she needs help with two little steps, before her belly even shows. She wonders what the next five months will be like. 

All the windows are open, the breeze ruffling the lace that hangs just on the other side of them. It hints at something more lovely inside. She’s eager to find out. Before she has a chance to open the door for herself, Kristoff does so for her. 

It’s a screen really, the door itself has been left wide open, even with no one home. There’s no one around for miles so there’s really no reason to have it closed, she supposes. 

“Welcome home.” Kristoff’s voice is surprisingly close to her ear as they linger in the threshold. She wonders if he’s thinking the same thing she is. How different this moment should be for newlyweds. Instead she’s carrying a casserole and a baby and no one’s carrying her. 

She can’t help but look at him, can’t keep the confusion from her face. How could he be so ignorant to the situation, so blindly hopeful? She almost wishes she shared that gift. Then again maybe she did and that’s what landed her here. 

The screen door thuds shut behind them. Through the open windows the house is brightly lit, the late afternoon sun casting beams of light over the parlor on the right. It’s sparse, a chair by the fire, a photo on the mantle. There’s a writing desk filled haphazardly. It’s the home of a bachelor, lacking warmth and femininity, lacking the distinction of  _ home _ . 

The dining area is on her right, leading straight into a kitchen just behind it. She can see the faint remains of his mother’s touch there. 

“The kitchen’s right through there.” He set down her suitcase and pointed to an archway at the end of the hall, just to the left of the stairs. She has little choice but to follow him in as he took the casserole from her hands. 

The kitchen is small, nothing like the one they’d had at home, where cooks and servants prepared their meals. Everything is white, marked with the rusty brown of dirt. 

“There’s some Coca-Colas in the ice box.” He opens the door and makes to get one out. 

“Oh no, I’m fine.” She held up a genteel gloved hand, the way she’d seen Elsa do. He nods his head, looking into the open door as if he might find what it is he should do in there. She watches as he rallies. 

He doesn’t even bother to speak as he points up the stairs, before crossing the room in two large strides to pick up her suitcase once again and carry it away up the staircase. He barely offers a glance back to make sure that she’s following. They come upon a bedroom on the left when they reach the second floor. 

“This was Bulda’s room.” He cocks his head in the direction of the partially open door. She catches a glimpse of a sky blue blanket before he’s moving on. They pass another door on the left, the only thing she’s seen closed in the house, before he turns to the right. 

She’s slower than him, needing about two and half steps maybe even three with her heels to his one. He’s set her suitcases down, so she knows this is to be her room.  _ Their  _ room. 

He wipes the sweat from the back of his neck and his brow, patting his hand dry against the pants of his suit when he speaks. 

“This was my parent’s room.” It sends a twist in her belly and she doesn’t step all the way in just yet. She watches him pace the room, uncaring of the details. What does it matter what the room looks like, she will have to fulfill her marital duty here all the same. 

“You’ll be staying here.” She still doesn’t know what it means. Where would he be staying? It itches like a scratch just out of reach, but she refuses to  _ ask _ . 

“Will that be alright?” He softens then, as he waits for her answer. She barely glances at the bed before tearing her eyes away. 

“Mm-hm.” She gives him a nod and a tight, closed lip smile she hopes looks genuine. 

He walks toward her then and she’s not sure if it’s her or the door he wants. She looks around for an escape, before taking a step back into the hall. It’s the door, it turns out, he couldn’t fit through it with her there. He walks past her like she’s a ghost, if it weren’t for the way he still narrates his tour of the upper level. 

“This is the bunk room.” He approaches the shut door, opening it wide for her to peek in, unable to hold back her curiosity. Two identical beds sit a few feet apart. They’re adorned with handmade quilts, matching ones. She pictures a young Kristoff here with a brother, laying awake at night giggling and sharing stories as she and Elsa had done. 

“You had a brother?” Her smile is genuine this time. 

“I do, well-I did. Lars got killed at Pearl Harbor.” He’s nervously wringing his fingers, she wonders if he notices. He turns before she can offer her condolences. She finds herself at odds with her perception of the man before her, who becomes more and more of an enigma with every passing moment. 

“Bathroom is just through here.” It’s the last door at the end of the hall. She doesn’t follow him at first, just watches his back as he moves through the space with a practiced familiarity. She wondered if his careful concealment of his emotions was practiced too. It made her feel more unsteady, more volatile. She sighs and follows him, ignoring the ache in her feet, and sore back. 

“Indoor plumbing.” He steps toward the pedestal sink. “Hot water. Cold water.” He demonstrates. He smiles at the stream of water coming from the tap as he does. 

“Just got that put in.” He rubs the water on his hands into his skin as he swaggers toward her. 

There’s one thing she hasn’t seen since she stepped foot in the house, the one thing she wants desperately. 

“Where’s the telephone?” The smile fades slowly from his face. 

“Well, there’s a phone box out in Wilson, just outside the post office.” He seems to realize the mistake he’s made even as he says it. 

She’s miles from home, miles from another soul, miles from a telephone. She has no way to contact her sister to tell her she’d arrived safely like she’d promised. 

She’s alone, with this strange man, well and truly alone. Or almost so, she rested a hand on her belly. 


	4. Kristoff's POV

Kristoff looks at the house he grew up in with new eyes. After spending all day in the fields, he comes home tired, unseeing of the faults that lay without and within. He rarely has the time or energy to do the fixing up that it needs. Getting indoor plumbing in had been enough trouble. Now he imagines all the work that must be done before the baby comes and he kicks himself for not getting to it sooner. 

He wishes he could have brought his wife home to the house as his mother ran it, crisp, yellow paint and white window panes you could see like a beacon from the surrounding fields. There would have been flowers blooming and linens on the table. As for him, he doesn’t know where to begin. 

So he starts with the dishes. He set their plates like he would for company, proper company, not just Bulda or Cliff. He takes time to light the candles on the mantle of the dining room fireplace, in case the light fades. It’s an optimistic thought, that they might stay long enough to see the twilight. Perhaps they might talk more and he would get to hear her voice again, carry it with him as he went to bed in his childhood room. 

If he had a telephone he would have been able to hear her speak. Not that Kristoff would eavesdrop, but maybe if he sat on the porch, her voice would carry just enough to hear the notes of it, like music. 

He’d upset her so many times already, he felt unsteady, as if they were dancing and he didn’t know the steps. Instead he just kept stepping on her toes. 

He hears a door open and shut above him and her dainty, heeled feet on the stairs, before he sees her. He pulls out her chair, before sitting across the table from her. It’s a family table, long enough to seat six if needs be, but it’s just them. Kristoff had set it just as his mother had, with his father at the head and her opposite. Now, with just the two of them seated at opposite ends, he knew he'd made a mistake. 

Only the sound of their silverware clinking against the porcelain made it across the table. Bulda’s food tastes bland, but he wonders if this is yet again him viewing his life through her eyes. Would she find it bland?

“Tomorrow I’ll get anything you want to stock the kitchen.” Then she could cook to her own tastes. Bulda had hated tomatoes during her pregnancies, perhaps she had similar preferences. 

“I don’t really know how to cook.” It’s not an attack, he knows, she says it so sweetly, but it’s a reminder of how different her life had been before she came here. There isn’t a soul alive here that didn’t know how to cook, man or woman. It isn’t the way out here in the country. 

“I mean I  _ could _ . I’ve just never really tried.” It almost makes Kristoff smile, the easy way in which she volunteers to try. He knows better, from enough failed attempts at burnt eggs and even more burnt bread, that it isn’t something one can pick up in an afternoon. Trust this woman to think that she could. He is tempted to believe she can. 

“I can cook a fair bit.” He can get them by for as long as she needs. He can’t imagine it will be easy for her to get meals out with a newborn. He’s cooked for himself all this time, as long as she doesn’t mind simple meals, he can be their family's cook. 

“My sister could come over and teach you?” Bulda would certainly love it. Ruth would probably be right on her tail, begging to come along. Kristoff certainly wouldn’t argue with having his sister’s quality of cooking all the time. 

She wouldn’t have to be alone, on the long days he worked the farm, with his sister around. He didn’t like the idea of her here by herself, without any knowledge of this life. 

“No, it’s fine. You know what? It shouldn’t be that hard.” He has to look down at the napkin in his lap now, rearrange it, to hide his smile. He’s picturing her, with her pretty hair, and her small fingernails filed and shiny, in a dirty apron, covered in flour, and cursing up a storm. 

“I can get a book at the library!” He doesn’t know how to answer that and he doesn’t want to dampen her enthusiasm, so he just pats his clenched jaw with his now perfectly folded napkin. 

“There is a library? Isn’t there?” She asks so tentatively, as if she’s not prepared for another disappointment. Truth be told, he’s not ready to deliver another. 

“Oh ya. In Lahunta.” He half wants this conversation to be over already, but after so many nights at this table in silence, even this is better than nothing. 

“That’s an hour away.” She states, maybe hoping she’s mistaken. He can barely meet her eyes for the entreating look he finds there. 

“Ya. About that.” This time she’s the first to look away, nodding her head like he’s confirmed something to herself about him, about this place, about her future. He wishes he knew what it is. It’s obvious she’s given up on talking. He didn’t blame her. 

He searches for something to talk to her about, rubs the thin layer of dust that’s settled on the table away as if he’ll find it written in the wood grain below. 

“The Reverend said you had lots of schooling?” He wills himself to stop fidgeting, bringing his hands down under the table to grip his thighs hard enough to hurt. 

“I was in graduate school studying archeology. My college thesis was Heinrich Schliemann’s excavation of Troy.” The name stops Kristoff’s heart. It’s so close to his own.  _ Henrik _ . A good, strong Norwegian name given to him by his mother. It made his blood boil to share it with a German.  _ Nazi _ , his mind whispers. 

“Was he German?” He asks. 

“Yes.” He knows he’s intimidating her. Can see it in the way she sits straight in her seat, how she answers clearly and strongly. 

“Was he a Nazi?” The word tastes like poison in his mouth. 

“No. He lived in the 19th century.” He feels silly now. Can’t quite meet her eyes. 

He knew not all Germans were Nazis. He did. But the sound of the Germanic tongue on her lips reminded him of a telegraph and funeral and an empty bed. 

And Henry hadn’t even lived in the same century. 

She gives him a small smile over the table and he only feels more like a small child. Not her equal. Certainly not her husband. 

He wants to show her he’s more, but her impression of him is probably right, he isn’t educated, not like her university schooling that’s for sure. His mother raised him right despite it and he doesn’t forget his manners now. He stands and takes her plate to the kitchen. She tries to stop him, to take her own, but he won’t hear of it. 

“No, sit.” He needs to do this. 

“Mrs. Pratt, from church, she bakes me a cake nearly every week. This one’s ah-” He set the dishes down in the sink so he could pull the cover off it. “Chocolate. Can I cut you a slice?”

He’s setting the cake down on the kitchen island when he realizes what he’s asking, the significance of it. 

“No thank you.” She spoke from the adjoining room. She hasn’t stood from her place at the table.

“We’ll save it then.” Kristoff feels as though he is saving a great deal of things. 

“Kristoff?” The sound of her voice saying his name has his feet following the sound as if by command. 

He stands right next to her, waiting, for what it might be that she’ll say next. She has to hold her neck just so to look into his eyes, which is proving difficult because he has to fight not to look at the elegant curve of it. 

“I was just wondering...why you agreed to this?” He’s been expecting the question. Maybe not today, maybe not now, but eventually. It’s a question he’s sat pondering night after night, up far longer than any farmer should have been. He looks at her blue eyes, cornflower blue, and he can’t deny her. 

“When the Reverend come out to see me and tell me about your-” He had to think for a moment how to say it, without making her feel unworthy, “situation.” 

Her eyes blink closed for a moment and he sees the tiny flair of her little nose as she sucks a breath in. He reckons she has a temper, when she can really get going. He regrets the choice of words but presses on. She gives him another chance, too. 

“Well, I thought-” He can’t look at her anymore. Not when he’s spilling his soul. He walks to the candles on the mantel, bringing one big hand behind the candelabra his mother had received as a wedding gift. He blows the three candles out. One at a time. 

“I thought maybe it be God’s will.” That maybe God had listened to those prayers he uttered in the deep dark, alone in the room he’d shared with his fallen brother his whole life. That maybe when he felt that aching in his gut while out on his tractor for  _ more,  _ that maybe God had felt that too. 

When the Reverend had come knocking on his door with the promise of family, Kristoff thought maybe God has not forsaken him after all. 

He blew out the third candle. 

“God’s will.” She echoes behind him. He knows that tone. It’s the sound of someone who’s given up on anything that isn’t the power of their own two hands. He doesn’t blame her. 

“You want anything else?” He asks when he can finally turn to look at her. He tries not to think about the fact that her eyes looked rimmed with red and a little bit duller. 

He can’t think about the fact that he might be the cause of it. He feels like he has failed. 

“No. Thank you.” She doesn’t look at him again. 

That’s the fact of the matter, isn’t it. She didn’t need him for anything else. He’d played his part. 

“Farmer’s get to bed early.” He moved for the stairs. “You have everything you need?” 

He wants to give her one more chance, ask one more time to hear her voice. 

“Yes.” It’s hardly more than a whisper. She’s still sitting in her chair, tall like a proper lady, like she doesn’t feel comfortable in her own home. Even if it is new. 

“Alright, good night.” He heads to the stairs so he won’t be disappointed. He almost misses her whispered reply. 

“Good night.” It follows him up the stairs. 

Alone in his room, Kristoff pulls from his dresser something he took from his parent’s room the day before. It’s heavy even in his hands, but he lays it delicately on the bed. He has to place the Bible next to his pillow to catch the moonlight streaming through the window. With his father’s fountain pen, he carefully takes his time with the curling letters. 

Marriages, the paper reads at the top. Then come his ancestors, back four generations, to which he adds his own. 

_ Kristoff Henrick Bjorgman + Anna Elizabeth Arendelle 1944 _ . 


	5. Anna's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Throwing this one up with less editing even than I usually manage to do.   
> I.e. None.

Anna sat at the table by herself long enough to watch the night chase the light from the room. She keeps waiting for something  _ more  _ to happen, but she’s left waiting. She hears Kristoff’s heavy footfalls above her, traces an imaginary line where she thinks he goes. They too, eventually come to a stop. 

She stands and makes her way up the stairs in the shadows. She finds herself wrapping her arms around herself to keep out an imaginary cold, but it does little good. It comes from inside. 

She lingers next to the bunkroom door, listens for any sign of life, but there is only the same stillness that blankets the rest of the house. When she finally makes it to his parent’s room-her room-she stops. 

She hadn’t had a chance to properly look at it, before. Now, even by moonlight she can see that it is the most beautiful room in the house. The walls are a delicate, if not slightly dated, pink with little teardrop flowers in a slightly darker color running up it in stripes. There are lace doilies on her vanity, and the dresser, where someone has gone through the trouble of filling a china jug with sprigs of fresh lavender. 

She goes to her suitcase, half open from when she’d prepared for dinner, quite unnecessarily. The little box from Elsa sits on top. She pulls the edge of the ribbon, pulling the bow away. Inside she finds an elegant pair of earrings. 

These had certainly been meant for her wedding. Something to pass down as an heirloom in the future. She would have felt so silly wearing them, knowing what her wedding day would entail now. 

Still she holds them to her ears, over the delicate pearls she wears now and can’t help but smile. 

The hush of nightfall is broken by distant barking. It shocks Anna, that the dog is still out in the shed. He must be. She pulls back her curtains and watchs the shed. It looks the same, giving no hint of anyone of anything being inside. 

She wonders what kind of man her husband is once again. She puts the pieces together that she does know. Farmer. Brother. 

He can cook. He owns a dog, though it’s yet to be seen whether he likes the animal or not. He might hate the Germans. 

How could she know so little about him and yet still know more than she knew of Hans? She sits on her bed to pull the locket hidden in the bodice of her dress. The chain is just long enough to hold it away from her breast far enough to see. 

She strokes a finger over the black and white photograph there. 

The weight of her decisions weighed down upon her shoulders. She never had a chance to see what kind of a person he really was and now she would never see what kind of a father, either. 

She feels the sob in her throat before she notices the tears in her eyes. She lets the locket fall away to hold a hand to her mouth as if she might be able to keep them in that way. She goes to bed crying. 

Anna’s used to be woken by any number of things, from servants bustling around, to her father entertaining guests loudly or practicing sermons, to the rare occasion when Elsa stayed with them and she would get her up with the sun. Without any of those things, Anna sleeps in until nine. She’d meant to wake early, knowing Kristoff would. She wants to go to the library, but more than that, she wants to use the telephone. 

She rushes to get dressed, choosing one of her most informal outfits. When she pins her hair in place in front of the mirror she can’t help but think it’s a wasted effort. She still doesn’t like what she sees. 

She’s going downstairs to see if she can borrow the truck, she really is, when she passes the closed door of his bedroom. With a quick glance down the stairs, she opens it enough to slip inside. It’s frozen in time, as if Kristoff had never changed it, both beds made as impeccably as they had been the night before. She moves to the closet, passing a dressing table with a thick Bible on top. Her family owned a similar one. She likes the idea that something ties them together, even if it’s a God she doesn’t believe in. 

She pushes past the hanging curtain to enter the closet. His clothes all hang meticulously, including the suit he wore to their wedding. She lets her fingers linger on the fabric for a moment. Maybe, in another life, if they’d met a different way, she might have found out what it felt like a different way. 

In the drawer of his bedside table she finds what is obviously Kristoff’s Bible. It’s damaged and worn, well-loved one might say. She adds it to the list of things she knows about him. 

There’s a box of momentos, lined in velvet and a folded American flag, just a small triangle now. Lying on top of it is a pocket watch that clicks away in the silence. She wonders why he has chosen to keep these things. She reaches out to touch it, to treasure it in the same way he has done, but she can hear the dog barking in the front and a door slams and she snaps the drawer shut. 

It’s Kristoff, he’s outside holding a box of groceries, she can see him through the screen door and she meets him on the porch. He looks different, in his brown trousers and suspenders, sleeves rolled up and hat on his head like a proper farmer. 

“Good morning.” She feels a little silly saying it now. It’s past ten and he’s evidently been up for hours. 

“Morning.” He says back anyway with a smile. 

“I can’t believe I slept so late.” She laughs, because she can, she just hadn’t  _ intended  _ to. 

“You needed your rest.” It takes her moment to remember she’s pregnant. That he isn’t just saying that because of the travel. It drives away some of her cheer, reminds her of why she’d gotten ready in the first place. 

She takes a step forward to ask him what she’d set out to talk to him about in the first place when she catches a streak of movement coming around the corner of the house. It’s accompanied by a familiar bark, whose owner she finally gets to meet. 

It’s a rather rude introduction and while she normally wouldn’t mind the jumping, she instinctively curls in around her stomach, pushing him away. It’s a balancing act, trying to protect the tiny bump and also keep her skirt down. 

“Sven!” It’s the first time Anna’s hear Kristoff’s voice like this. He’s been so quiet and mild mannered up until this point. She thinks some part of her must have known he is capable of making himself heard. She knows now that he has a voice to match his size. 

“No, Sven. Down. Come here.” She’s surprised to see the dog listen, heeling beside him on command. She feels silly now, getting scared of clearly very well meaning pup. 

“You’re alright, good boy.” He reached a spare hand down to rub his ears, his voice going soft again. She’s heard it both ways now, but she still doesn’t feel like she’s heard it angry, she wonders whether this man is capable of it. 

“I thought I’d drive into Lahunta today.” She’s still skirting around Sven, who’s taken to nosing around her feet now. She feels like she’s lost the confidence she came downstairs with. 

“Maybe look around town, let the family know I’m here.” She keeps rambling the longer he goes without answering. “Can I borrow the truck?”

Kristoff’s grinning at her, like he doesn’t mean to, when he looks back at the truck in question. He tips his head, hat obscuring some of his face. 

“Well, uh, Beet Box has got a mind of its own.” When he looks up at her from under the brim it’s a challenge. He’s laughing at a joke she doesn’t know, but it’s the first thing since she got here that she wants to be a part of. 

“ _ Beat Box _ ?” She can hear her own smile in her voice. She’d heard the sounds the machine could make the day before and could attest that it was certainly musical, just arguably lacking in rhythm.

“I use that truck to haul my beets.” She makes a mental note. Her husband is a beet farmer. She is the wife of a beet farmer. 

“Best if I drive you over.”

“Oh.” She tries to keep the disappointment from her voice. “I’m sure you have things to do.” 

“It’s no bother, I’m glad to do it.” And bless him, she knows he is, but she wants to go  _ alone.  _

“Let me go get my library card. Check out some cookbooks.” There’s a joke there and a sweet gesture all in one, but she can only fake the smile she gives him as he passes. 

She feels as though she has to play a part around him and she wants a moment to strip it away. Maybe she just wants to be able to cry as loud as she wants with no one to hear her. She certainly doesn’t want him watching her while she calls Elsa or goes to the mailbox to slip inside the letter that’s burning a hole in her purse. 


	6. Kristoff's POV

Anna’s in the passenger seat of his truck again. Sure enough, Beet Box is growling away. He’d been so glad to see her on the porch when he got in that morning. He’s even more glad he’s finally able to do something for her. 

She’d looked like something out of a dream really, dressed all in summer sky blue that made her eyes look even prettier. He’d just got in from picking up some groceries and for a moment he could imagine…

Well he could imagine things were different. 

“Are those tomatoes?” She pipes up from beside him, loud enough to carry her voice over the wind and the grinding gears. 

Kristoff has to give them a good look, before answering. She’s caught him off guard enough to have him questioning his crops. He’s not entirely sure  _ what  _ she’s looking at. 

“Potatoes.” He’s not sure what else to say. 

Should he give her an explanation on how to tell the difference? He didn’t want her to think he’s talking down to her. Or when he’d planted them? Maybe when he planned to harvest? Did she care? He couldn’t imagine that the subject was very interesting to her. He  _ wants  _ it to be. 

His eyes stay on the road. He has to  _ will _ himself not to stare at her with the same dopey-eyed smile on his face he’s been fighting since he first laid eyes on her. 

He hangs his elbow out the window, to try and catch some of the breeze. He’s sweating and he’s probably going to start smelling like it in a minute. She, on the other hand, smells like flowers and spring. He wonders if their house will carry that scent soon, too. 

“Some of the fields are empty.” He’s surprised she’s asking again, probably for lack of anything else to say. 

“Yup.” He doesn’t bother to look this time. He wipes the sweat gathering on his neck and chest with a handkerchief..

“Why?” She prompts. 

He steals a quick glance at her from the corner of his eye, trying to determine whether she’s being genuine. She looks earnest, so he presses on. 

“We harvested the first cash crop, winter wheat. Next, we’ll harvest them beets. Then, the potatoes.” The potatoes have done particularly well this year and he’s hoping to get a fair price on them. 

Maybe she wouldn’t mind being a farmer’s wife after all. 

“May I help?” Kristoff takes his eyes from the road to look at her, sitting tall in her seat, face open and honest, but he doesn’t miss the unmistakable challenge in her eyes. 

It threatens to finally make him smile once and for all, but he doesn’t want her to think he’s laughing at her. He lets his eyes follow her body, her delicate neck and fine arms, a waist he could fit his hands around. At least for now. 

“Well I doubt it.” Maybe he would have said yes. If it hadn’t been for the baby.

She’s far from a working woman, she lacks the strong bones of Bulda, and the calloused hands one needed to work without tearing the skin. Still, Kristoff can almost see it, them working side by side. She’d be vibrant and enthusiastic, making the days go by quicker. 

“You’re right, I don’t know anything about farming.” The words melt away her earlier confidence and Kristoff regrets it. He’s never been good at saying things in the  _ right  _ way. 

He smiles at her, a vague attempt at comfort when he can’t reach out and touch her. 

“You’ve got the house to take care of?” He offers instead, she can grow things there. Roses, and vegetables, and their baby.

He wants to tell her she’ll learn, that once upon a time he hadn’t known about the way things grow or what the soil needs. He’d built the knowledge like his father had built their house, had built him. She’ll learn to build a life here too. 

She doesn’t speak for the rest of the drive. He guesses he’s said something wrong. 

When they get into Lahunta he pulls up right in front of the telephone box. He imagines she’s saving her words for her family. 

Her  _ other  _ family. 

“Need any change?” He offers, but his presence so nearby sets her on edge and he knows she wants privacy to make the call.

“No, I’ve got it. Thank you.” He nods, trying not to be disappointed. Anna’s proven she’s an independent woman time and time again, and it makes Kristoff proud just as many. He just needs to let go of the longing to be  _ needed _ . 

“I’ll be in the library.” He points to the building behind him, pausing his efforts to roll down his sleeves to look a little more presentable. The last thing he sees before he turns to leave is the way the tension releases from her body, finally at ease. 

It gives Kristoff the time he needs to gather a few things without her keen eyes watching him every second, as well. 

He’s no stranger to the library. Days are long and lonely up at the house and a good book helps pass the time. Besides that, he’d had to learn how to put the plumbing in somehow. 

Today he finds himself unsure on his feet, feels like he’s never been between these shelves before, despite coming here since he was a little boy. He casts a quick glance around before finding the section he’s looking for. 

The spines are well worn on these books. Well read and well loved. He picks the one that looks the roughest, like many mothers' hands have picked it up and turned it’s pages. It doesn’t feel like something you can learn from a book in the same way you can learn to fit a pipe, but he has to try. 

He carries the book with him to the counter and sets it down with the others.  _ Preparing for Baby.  _

“Are you expecting a little one?” The librarian asked as she checked out each book. 

“Yes, ma’am we are.” Kristoff couldn’t help the swell of pride in his chest. 

“Oh, how wonderful!” It really is wonderful. He can only hope that Anna thinks so too. 

“Yes, ma’am.” He can see her out the window from where he is standing. She’s curled around the phone, holding tight to the receiver like it’s a lifeline. Every once in a while she casts a glance over her shoulder and he knows she’s looking for him. 

“Do you have any books on Henry Schliemman?” He turns to the librarian on impulse, not giving himself time to feel embarrassed or back out of the idea.

“Is that an ‘sh’ or a ‘sch’?” Kristoff’s caught off guard, stumped, and ready to back out but he presses forward. 

“Your guess is as good as mine. I think he was an archaeologist.” He looks down at the book on the top of the pile,  _ Cooking is Easy.  _ If she could try, so could he. 

“I’ll have a look.” The librarian gave a cheery reply and turned to the card catalog.


	7. Anna's POV

“If father wanted to punish me, he’s done a great job.” Anna laughs, but she knows Elsa will catch the slight break in her voice, the quaver as she speaks. 

“Oh, Anna, don’t cry. Oh Hon, is he horrid?” Anna knows he must seem so. It hasn’t been 48 hours and she’s crying in a phone box in the center of town. 

She can’t help but look over her shoulder to make sure that no one’s there, even though her answer won’t be a bad one. 

“No, no.” For all that she wishes things could be different, she can’t lie. 

“If he mistreats you for even one  _ second  _ I’m coming to get you.” Elsa promises from the other line. For a moment she doesn’t feel so far away. 

“Elsa…” She almost can’t bring herself to say it. Doesn’t want to think about what it says about her. “Have you heard from Hans?”

“No.” Anna nods, she’d expected this. 

“Oh, Anna, remember this isn’t forever.” Elsa always had a plan. She’ll find a way to get them out of this, just like she has before. 

“I know.” She feels the dam threaten to break now as the longing for her sister grows to a crescendo. Did her love for her sister outweigh the sacrifice of a good man?

The question loomed in her mind as they left town. It’s quiet except for the sound of Beet Box, so she’s surprised when Kristoff stops and kills the ignition, plunging them into complete silence. 

“You ready to learn?” Kristoff turns to ask. It takes her a minute to realize what he’s offering. He wants to teach her to  _ drive _ .

“What? I thought you said-” This morning he’d seemed against it. 

“Beet Box is finicky, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn to keep him under control. You want to come around and give it a shot?” He’s offering her so much more than he realizes. He’s giving her back her freedom. She grabs it with both hands. 

“Yes. Yes!” She’s out of the car and sprinting to the wheel before he has a chance to respond. He’s laughing as he gets out, holding the door open and shutting it behind her. 

She rearranges her skirt while he walks around, pulling herself together, even though she’s still shaking with excitement. 

“Alright, now the clutch does stick so you have to ease off slow.” He tells her after they’ve got Beet Box roaring to life.

She’s driven before, fancy new things, bright and shiny that made driving a dream. Beet Box is like trying to wrangle a saddle onto a bear. 

“Okay.” Her heels make it a little difficult, but she manages, only jolting forward a bit before getting going at a steady pace. 

“There you go!” Kristoff’s more excited than she’s ever seen him and it’s contagious. She feels proud and excited and empowered. Her cheeks hurt from smiling. She doesn’t dare take her eyes off the road to look to him though. 

They pick up speed gradually and she forgets to watch the dials. Kristoff prompts her though, easy and kind. 

“Shift! Give it a pop!” He’s a surprisingly good teacher and while she has to muscle the gear shift a bit to get it to move, she feels like a good student. 

“Shit!” She whispers and she feels herself color, not sure if he’s heard the slip. He doesn’t say anything about it, but she thinks she hears him chuckle. 

“That’s it.” He doesn’t seem worried at all. He’s sitting back in his seat, arm slung out the window. 

“This is easy!” She doesn’t know why she’d been so nervous in the first place. She feels at home, not necessarily behind the wheel, but  _ learning  _ again. 

“Now, the gas gauge says full, but it isn’t. You gotta hit it just right and it’ll tell you the truth for one split second-” He snaps his fingers, “and it’ll shoot right back up there to full.” 

It feels good to share this with him, makes her feel less like a guest in this life. She knows the trick to the Beet Box. She’s a part of something now. She doesn’t really remember the last time someone gave her that. 

“Where do I hit it?” She flicks her eyes back and forth between the road and the gauge. 

“Right there, give it a pop.” Kristoff’s hand hesitates as it comes close to her arm, before reaching through the wheel to point at a spot just to the left of the center. It leaves her flustered. 

He pulls his hand away and she replaces it with her own, tapping the spot with her gloved fingers. 

“Quick like.” He encourages. She channels some of the energy nervously buzzing under her skin and hits it harder. Sure enough, the dial dips down before shooting back up to full. 

“We’re at half a tank!” She laughs. 

“The gas can is in back, just in case.” She sees him throw a thumb back in the direction of the truck bed out of the corner of her eye. She can just make out his smile too. 

She looks back through the window to see if she can spot it, but she gets distracted by something out Kristoff’s window. 

“Wow. Look at that.” Workers, with tools and bonnets, work the field by hand. She can hear their voices call over the sound of the rattling truck. It’s like nothing she’s ever heard before, foriegn and tonal. They have dark hair, pulled into braids and buns, and under hats. 

“Are they Japanese?” She’d known there were internment camps in this part of the country. She just-she didn’t expect to see the effects of one. It’s jarring. It leaves an uneasy feeling in her gut and a bad taste in her mouth. 

“Watch the road.” Kristoff gently prompts. 

He must see the way it bothers her, she can’t stop her eyebrows from knitting together unhappily. 

“They’re from Camp Amache.” He says. 

“That’s an  _ internment camp _ .” She responds, not knowing what the matter-of-fact manner with which he said it meant. Not knowing what it said about him. 

“Yes it is. Farms are short-handed, government needs the food, so they send the workers.” Just like that. They ‘sent the workers’. Like these weren’t everyday people, citizens, sent to work like slaves. 

“They work  _ your  _ farm?” She feels the fragile connection they’d built up shattering. 

“ _ Our  _ farm. And yes they do.” It seems to be enough for him. The simple logic of supply and demand. 

_ She’s the wife of a beet farmer. _

She wishes it were that simple. 


	8. Kristoff's POV

Kristoff isn’t sure what Anna will say about going to church on Sunday. She doesn’t seem particularly religious, despite her upbringing. Kristoff’s faith only extends so far as tradition. His mother had taken them all to church, every Sunday she was alive. Christmas and Easter gave him something to look forward to each year. Sunday’s offered a break from the workload of the week. God...well God was a bit like a tradition too. He’d brought him Anna though, so he’ll go and worship every Sunday of his life if it means he gets to keep her. 

Luckily, he doesn’t even have to bring it up with her, she’s already waiting downstairs when he comes down. She’s wearing the dress she married him in. He knows it’s probably because she doesn’t have much else. He’s wearing the same suit. 

Knowing more about her now, knowing what her smile looks like, he wishes they could do it all again here on the porch. He wonders if she would still say yes. 

They make the drive in silence. Anna only speaking to ask if his sister will be there. Bulda always is, he tells her. His sister had a love for God as big as the mountains and it extended to every living creature she met. He wants Anna to like her. 

She knows all the words to the hymns, and her voice is so pretty Kristoff sings quieter just to hear her better, he thinks the good Lord will forgive him for that. She looks stiff and he doesn’t know if it’s being surrounded by strangers or if it has something to do with how she cringes everytime the Reverend comes to the pulpit. 

Kristoff wonders what kind of preacher her father had been. 

The ‘amens’ come quick enough and they all go to the hall to eat. When everybody travels so many miles to worship, they all chip in to make it worthwhile. Not that church wasn’t worthwhile, the Lord would forgive him for that too. 

It’s just people tended to be better company with something in their bellies and nothing could loosen tongues like Bulda’s icebox cake. 

“Ruth’s been dying to meet you. She’s my oldest.” He hears from where he’s talking with a few of the neighboring farmers about the weather. Kristoff smiles on as Bulda, one arm around her oldest’s shoulders, encourages her to say hello. 

“Hi Ruth! I’m Anna.” His trepidation melts away hearing her warm welcome. Ruth had been talking about her non-stop, Kristoff’s wife from the east, coming by train. She thought the whole thing was romantic. 

“My boys are running around outside somewhere, but they’ll come in once they realize the food is in here.” Kristoff remembers being young like that once. Playing games of marbles they’d snuck in their pockets and stealing second helpings when their mother wasn’t looking. He wonders if they will have a son who will be nothing but trouble too. 

“Is your dress store bought?” Ruth asks. It makes Kristoff flush bright red, Ruth has always spoken her mind, like her mother. She’s just too young to know when and how to say such things. 

He excuses himself from his conversation, they’ve moved on to talking about Potato Beetles. He doesn’t know what he’s standing around talking about defoliation for anyway, when he’s got a pretty wife to get back to. 

“Yes it is.” Anna laughs as he comes up to stand beside her. 

“I bet it was.” Ruth gazes at it longingly. 

“Well Kristoff-” Mrs. Pratt came up to stand beside his sister. “Are you going to introduce us?” Anna looked to him with eyes full of panic. 

“Yes ma’am, Mrs. Pratt, Mrs. Parker. This is my wife, Anna.” They look on eagerly, like two hens presented with an ear of corn. 

“Your wife!” Mrs. Pratt exclaims, while Mrs. Parker steps forward to take Anna’s hand in both of hers. “Well, how do you do?” One spoke over the other. 

“Nice to meet you.” Anna took it in stride with her usual grace. 

“Your wife!” Mrs. Pratt repeats excitedly. 

“I’m Mrs. Parker. I’ve known Kristoff since he was this high!” She holds her hand down to her knees. Kristoff feels a bolt of fear go through him at the realization of the stories this woman could, and given the opportunity would, tell. 

“And this is Mrs. Pratt.” Kristoff hurries on the exchange. 

“Goodness me! We never knew!” She chatters on. The panic starts setting in. He’s not worried about these two, he isn’t worried about anybody really, but he can see how Anna is panicking. 

Of course they never knew. There was nothing to  _ know _ . He doesn’t want them to think that, doesn’t want Anna to be anyone but his precious sweetheart in their eyes, even if she can’t be outside these walls. 

“Pleased to meet you.” She finishes and for a moment, Kristoff thinks (miraculously) they might be done. 

“And Bulda never said a word!” Mrs. Parker said more to Mrs. Pratt than anyone else. 

“Yes. Aren’t we all blessed.” Bulda says with a smile and a look sent his way. They’re in the clear, but they should still probably slip out now. Anna’s been more than patient already. 

“Sweetheart, will you help me with the table?” Bulda asks Ruth, giving them an out to also bid their goodbyes. 

“Bye.” Ruth wistfully sighs as she passes by Anna, who gives her a smile and a whispered goodbye as well. 

“You must not be from here.” Mrs. Pratt says and Kristoff prepares himself for the worst. 

“We’ve been so worried about Kristoff” Mrs. Parker pipes in.

“The way things have played out here.” Well he certainly doesn’t know what they mean by that. 

“And not a single young woman to speak of.” Mrs. Parker remarks sadly. 

“And Kristoff such a fine young man.” Mrs. Pratt whispers conspiratorially to Anna. He blushes bright red, even though he pretends not to hear. 

“How’d ya meet?” They say in unison, eyes wide and hungry as only two widows can be. 

“I...eloped.” Anna spoke so slowly, it’s a wonder they didn’t spot that she was making the story up as she went along right away. 

Kristoff blinks a few times as he tries to piece together a story he knows these women will believe, but also won’t be able to peck at. 

“We met in Denver.” He’s kicking himself for not being able to come up with anything better. It’s the story they’ll be telling for the rest of their lives after all. 

“How romantic, I never knew you travelled to Denver.” It’s a scratching for more, one that Kristoff pointedly ignores. 

“You come sit by me at the potluck.” Mrs. Pratt entreats Anna, no doubt hoping to catch her in her spider’s web and get out more of the story, as she passes over the covered cake she’s been holding. 

Kristoff rushes to put on his hat and step forward to take it from her outstretched hands before she can burden Anna with it and her presence. 

“Oh, we’d love to stay, but we really outta be gettin’ on.” He gave them his best smile to soften the blow. “But we’re really gonna enjoy this cake, Mrs. Pratt. Thank you.”

“Oh your most welcome!” Mrs. Parker says at the same time Mrs. Parker spoke. 

“Your very welcome.” They sound just like they do in church singing hymns together. 

Anna makes her escape first, slipping past, leaving Kristoff to give their final goodbyes in her wake. 


	9. Anna's POV

Anna feels like she can breathe again as they step out of the hall of the little chapel. She’d felt uncomfortable to say the least. She wonders if she will ever feel at ease in a pew ever again. 

Her baby might not have been born of love, not the kind you hear about in stories at least, but he is loved now. She hates feeling like God might think her child is a sin. 

“I just have a letter I need to drop at the post office.” She hurries straight past Beet Box to cross the street. 

“It’s Sunday.” Kristoff calls after her and it makes her stop in her tracks. Is this what life with her new husband would be like? 

She can’t piece together what he means by it. 

“I can mail it for you tomorrow?” He entreats, like he’s easing the blow. She knows the post is closed on Sundays. Perhaps his comment wasn’t to criticize after all. 

“It already has a stamp on it. I’m just going to drop it in the box.” She gives him a winning smile. “It’s for my sister.” As if that would explain her trepidation. He seems to be satisfied with that, turning to place the cake in the middle seat of the cab while she heads over to the mail drop, only a few feet away, in front of the Wilson post office. 

She stares at it longer than necessary before dropping it in. There’s a brief moment where she considers keeping it, taking it back home and burning it. But she owes him this doesn’t she? And she owes herself an answer. So she never has to ask, what if. 

_ Lt. Hans Westergaurd, Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi, Texas _

The letter disappears from view into the darkness below and the decision is made. She closes the mailbox with a screech of hinges, and walks away. 

Anna expects them to go straight home. Her father would have had her spend the rest of the day reading the good book or sewing, neither of which she’s particularly good at. Kristoff apparently has no qualms with enjoying God’s creations on His holy day, because when they finally come to a stop on an unfamiliar road, it’s at a pond. 

Anna can’t move for a moment as she watches the reeds sway in the breeze from her window, for fear it would melt away before her eyes. If she couldn’t see it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t believe it existed. It’s the first place that’s felt like home in a long time. Kristoff gets out and goes around the back, digging in the back of the truck until he pulls out a fishing pole. 

She can feel her heart beating heavier in her chest with every passing moment. She gets to stay here, at least for a time. She reaches out to open the door, in a bit of a daze. It’s hard to walk to the edge of the pond in her heels. Some of the bank is rocky and some is just swamp, but she finally makes it to watch the breeze cast ripples across the surface. 

Kristoff is nearby, overturning rocks to search for bait. When he finds what he’s looking for he secures it to his hook and then stands. 

“Would you like to go out on the boat?” He gestures to a small dock a few feet away. 

“Yes.” Anna can’t help the tears in her eyes, the longing she fees for  _ that _ , that very thing. 

Kristoff reaches out a hand to help her across the bank and for a moment she just stares at it. Before she can think too much about how she can’t remember touching her husband before, she takes it, as she gets closer he shifts her hand to his elbow, a more  _ proper _ hold. 

It hurts, Anna’s surprised to find out, more than she would have thought. He helps her into the canoe, with a gentle hand at her elbow. While her hand could hardly cover the side of his forearm, his wraps all the way around her own. She must stare at it for too long, because he grows self-conscious and takes it back before she has a chance to think on it much more.

He paddles them out into the center, with strong, sure strokes. 

“Can you swim here?” She asks when she’s finally brave enough to break the silence. He has his line in the water, but he doesn’t seem particularly interested in how it’s doing.

“It’s right shallow for swimmin’. There’s two feet of silt down there.” He looks out over the waves, his eyes squinting against the sun. She can see the worn lines there, like hieroglyphics written on his face, the story of his life. 

“Do you like to swim?” He tilts his head when he asks her and it reminds her of Sven. She can’t help but smile too. 

“I used to.” She touches the small bump hidden under her dress with gentle fingers. Then brings the hand down to dance along the water’s surface. 

“I used to love to swim.” It feels like another loss for her to grieve, but all loss feels lessened here, like the water could wash it away. 

She leans back as far as she can, letting the sunlight wash over her. It’s cooler here among the cottonwoods and the reeds, with the water sending off cool humidity, and it’s delicious on her skin. She’s long since stripped off her shoes and she slides her foot along her ankle and her calf, luxuriating in the freedom of it. 

It feels as if they are the only two people in the world here and she finds that she doesn’t mind. 

A dragonfly comes to flutter against her cheek and she gently bats it away. Pulled from her revelry, she props herself up on her elbows, to speak to Kristoff. He’s given her this gift after all, she should really share her gratitude. Perhaps it can be a small gift in return.

“Thank you for lying to Mrs. Pratt.” She can’t help but smile when she thinks of the exuberant old woman. It’s fitting that she’s the one that has been making him cakes all these years. Anna would wager to guess she’s half in love with her husband. 

“Mm-hmm.” Kristoff’s mouth quirks up in a smile of his own, his eyes playful. They have a joke now, the two of them. 

“Middle of the day’s not the best time for fishing.” He looks back over to the reed pole he’s still got hanging over the edge into the water. 

“Being out here’s the point.” He laughs a bit to himself. “Fishin’...it’s just an excuse I suspect.” 

He’s nodding when he looks back at her, confirming this for himself. It means he took her out here, just to...pass the time. 

To be with her.

So when Monday morning dawns and she hears him working in the fields right around the house, she dons her hat and goes out, just to be with him. 

The number of workers surprises her, but she supposes it’s necessary, when the yield is so large.  _ Farms are short-handed, the government needs the food, so they send the workers.  _ These are people from the internment camp. 

Her desire to meet Kristoff in the field dissipates. She turns to go back to the house, but something gives her pause. She hears feminine giggling from behind the small tool shed. It’s surrounded by tall sunflowers and weeds, half obscuring two figures within.

Anna takes a step closer, but the hushed whispering ceases as one of the girls takes notice. She casts a protective arm around the other, shepherding her away, and Anna briefly catches a glimpse of a notebook. 

“Excuse us.” The girl says, short and curt, preparing for condescension. It’s an apology and Anna hates it. She stands tall in the face of it. They both run into each other trying to get away and Anna feels the scramble intimately. 

“No, I’m sorry.” She scrambles to keep their attention even as they leave. “What were you studying?”

It gives them pause and Anna felt a slight glimmer of hope. The girls seem to have a silent conversation between them. 

“Um...butterflies.” The smaller of the two finally answers. 

“Do you collect?” It’s the first conversation Anna’s had in days that isn’t like pulling teeth, even with its own degree of difficulty. 

“No. We log our observations in our notebook.”  _ Observations _ . Anna rolls the word around in her mouth, treasuring it. 

She can see they’re anxious to get back, anxious of her, but she can’t let this slip through her hands. 

“I’m Anna. I-I live in the farmhouse.” She gestures to the house at the top of the rise. 

“We were just getting back to work.” Their demeanor changes at her admission and she realizes what she’s done. They’re already shoving their gloves back on.

“No. Wait, wait.” She takes a cautious step forward. “What did I cause you to miss?” 

“What did you-what kind of butterfly did you see?” She points to the spot they’d been huddled together. She imagines a butterfly there, beautiful enough to draw their attention, to scribble in their notebook. 

“It was a Common Blue.” The more talkative girl even smiles when she says it. Anna’s heart feels like a balloon expanding in her chest, filling with joy to capacity.

“Ah! There!” A brilliant blue-winged butterfly floats between them, right past her face and up and up until she can’t tell it from the sky anymore.

“Are there many species here?” She wrings her fingers anxiously, trying to hold in her enthusiasm. 

“Yes, hundreds.” She spoke again. It’s too much like Kristoff’s short answers. 

“Like what?” She pushes just a little harder for more. 

“Silver-spotted Skippers.” She seems to have finally brought them around. 

“Mourning Cloaks....Hawkmoths…” The other chimes in. 

“Mm-hmm. Specklewoods.” They’re laughing together now. 

“May I see your book?” The taller girl looks skeptical, but almost impressed with Anna’s candor, it plays to her favor. She nods to the other and they move together closer to her. Anna closes the remaining distance. 

Their book is filled with sketches of flowers and butterflies. They’re beautiful, showing meticulous effort and attention to detail. There are words scrawled in the corners. Dates and sightings and latin names. 

“These are beautiful.” She doesn’t realize she’s said the thought aloud until the girl beside her smiles brilliantly. 

“Thank you.” She offers shyly. 

“Look!” They’re interrupted. “Over there!” 

A butterfly with wings the color of golden fields of wheat has landed a few feet away from them. It rests in the brush, a delicate piece of art amongst the ordinary. 

“What is it?” Anna knew she didn’t need to whisper, but it  _ felt  _ as if she should. 

“A Sulphur...some species of Sulphur.” She looks apologetic that she can’t remember the specifics, but Anna’s enthralled. She wonders if she can get a book on butterflies from the library. 

The moment is ruined by Sven chasing after her, tail wagging, and barking. The butterfly disappears as quickly as it came. The girls shriek and rush to get away. It reminds her of her own first meeting with the well-intentioned beast. 

“Sven! No. No! Shoo!” She tries to push him away, step between them and him, anything to reclaim the moment. She only manages to make them more afraid. 

“Sven, no.” Luckily, Sven listens, staying at her side, eagerly waiting to be given the go ahead to meet his new friends. 

“He’s your dog?” The one who Anna guesses is younger, giggles. 

“No-” The elder gives her an exasperated look. She realizes her mistakes. 

“ _ Well _ …” She supposes he is, in a way. “Are-are you thirsty?” She tries instead. 

“We should get back to work.” Anna feels the tentative friendship slipping through her fingers. 

“Come to the house anytime. We have cold colas in the icebox.” The taller girl drags the shorter behind, field journal in tow. 

“Thank you.” It feels more like a dismissal. 

“Wait!” She shouts after them. “What are your names.”

For a moment she truly thinks they will walk away. 

“Rose Umahara.” The more reserved of the two surprises Anna by answering first and ever the ring leader, the other soon follows. 

“Florie.” She smiles brilliantly. “Bye!” 

Anna doesn’t feel the pain in her cheeks, from smiling to her ears, until they’re gone. She feels the loss of their company inside herself, but she imagines their discomfort is much greater as they head back to  _ work _ . 

She looks down to Sven, panting beside her happily. The smile drops from her face completely. 

“Go away Sven.” He continues you look at her adoringly. “ _ Go away _ .” She pouts. 

When he refuses to leave her alone, or take responsibility for his actions, she decides she’ll leave instead, storming back to the farmhouse makes her feel only marginally better. 


	10. Kristoff's POV

Anna has to see her new doctor, about the baby. Even though she can drive now, they go together, by some unspoken agreement. 

He feels less sure of the decision sitting in the waiting room with the other women. The one sitting across from him is working on some knitting, a coat that’s smaller than anything he’s ever seen before. Something small enough to fit inside would hardly fill one of his hands. 

He doesn’t know what to  _ do _ with a baby. His hands are coarse and rough and any child would surely cry being held by them. He tries to remember holding little Ruth, thirteen years ago. He can remember how red she’d been, like a kidney bean, wailing and waving her fists. 

He could also remember how her fingers, so small and delicate, had looked. He remembers counting them, being amazed that one day he’d been so small. He’ll need to practice holding something that fragile, that important. 

He tries to make himself focus on his book, but he’s read the same sentence three more times than it usually takes him to understand what it’s talking about and he still has no clue what it says. 

A baby cries in the distance, coming from one of the rooms. It reminds him of one of Bulda’s goats. The newborn kids suck your fingers while they wait for a bottle. Will he be able to nurse their child the same way? Hold them to his chest and watch as they drink greedily from their bottle? 

Anna comes out of the exam room looking exactly as she had been going in, except her good mood has disappeared. She’s brisk and insincere, breezing past him and out the door, leaving him clambering to catch up. 

“While we’re in town I need to mail a letter.” She seems more interested in mailing letters than their child and he hopes to God it doesn’t mean what he thinks it means.

“Everything go alright?” She seems keen enough to ignore that they’ve just spent the morning at the physician’s. Perhaps it means that nothing is the matter, but he doesn’t know the first thing about motherhood.

“Everything’s right on schedule.” It’s not like her, to be giving such short answers, for him to be the one digging for more. 

“Did he say when the baby was coming?” He follows her clear to her side of the cab, trying desperately not to press, but hadn’t he earned  _ something _ ? He hurries to pull her door open for her.

“December. I could have told you that before.” She says before she turns her back on him to get inside. 

It’s a bucket of cold water in his face and he has to fight not to close her door harder than necessary. Yes, there’s a lot she could have told him before, that she’s keeping from him, but it’s as much his fault as it is hers. She’d given him a chance.  _ Is there anything you want to ask me?  _

He goes around the back, pulling out the book he nearly always keeps in his back pocket, and tosses it in the bed of the truck. He supposes he has secrets of his own. It’s not the marriage he imagined for himself. 

“People will know.” She fires almost as soon as he opens the driver’s side door. “People will know the baby’s early.” 

She’s angry, but he understands her anger. She’s angry at herself, angry at the situation, and he’ll bear the brunt of that anger if she needs him too. 

Worry often has a way of coming out an awful lot like anger. 

“I don’t care what people think.” He says with a shrug. 

“I don’t see how you can be immune.” He has to let the insult of it wash off his back, before listening for something deeper.  _ I don’t know how you can bear this burden I bend beneath,  _ he hears

“People talk. People Gossip.” She spits angrily, a scowl scrunching up the freckles on her forehead and nose. 

He smiles as he gets into the truck. When she first spoke he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to calm her fears, but the more she tells him the more confident he is that they’ll be just fine. 

“They won’t say anything.” He tells her. It only gets him an eye roll as she tears her gaze away from him, as if she’s too annoyed to even look at him. 

“And why is that?” There’s his Anna. She never can let a mystery lie. He’s a little sad she can’t see the answer for herself.

“Well...they want the best for us.” Maybe one day she’ll want the same thing too. 

It’s some days later when the day he’s been waiting for on pins and needles arrives. He has to get up earlier than usual to take care of the chores, but it’s worth it. Particularly when he comes back in to find Anna in the kitchen. 

He’d been prepared to have a quick cheese sandwich before heading back out, but the table is set, fine-like with their nicest things. The kitchen is a bit of a mess, but it smells good, and not just because he can just catch a whiff of her flowery perfume. She’ll attract bees with a scent like that and why wouldn’t she? She’s sweeter than any honey. 

He moves to the sink to wash up clear to his elbows. He feels a bit inadequate in his overalls with the tops unclipped to wear like jeans. When he turns to look at his wife, she’s dressed in a crisp white dress, with tiny little umbrellas in bright colors and patterns all over it. Her aprons tied around her waist and the bow sets just so over the swell of her body. 

He doesn’t realize how close he’s gotten to her, until she stiffens, her arm stops stirring at the pan she’s cooking. It’s his mistake, he reminds himself not to  _ rush _ . 

“Smells good.” He says and moves to wait in the dining room, feeling strange for it, but knowing anything else will do more harm than good. 

“A fiesta omelet.” She says when she sets his plate down in front of him. It looks... _ good _ . 

She’s watching on excitedly, sitting on the edge of her seat, her own food going untouched while she waits for him to try his own. It’s a stunning thought to realize that she wants his approval. 

He cuts himself a large bite, here goes nothing, and shovels it in. It’s nice. He thinks she’s put some tomatoes in there and it’s seasoned alright, but the longer he chews, the more it goes wrong. It’s spicy. Kristoff’s not a man who can’t take a little bit of heat, but this is  _ hot _ . 

He’s caught between trying to chew faster, spit it out, and pull in air like a fish outta water. 

“Maybe I put too many jalapeno peppers in?” She’s visibly wilting, at the sight of his discomfort, and he’ll be damned if he lets her think poorly of her first attempt. 

“No. It’s real good.” He has to really clear his voice to speak but he gives her a smile. “Real good cookin’.” 

He really can’t complain, even if his throat does feel like it’s going to burn straight up, he didn’t have to make it after all. 

“The cheese-I forgot the cheese! Maybe it will mellow it; hold on.” She stands up to rush to the kitchen and it gives him the opening he needs to gulp down as much of his glass of water as he can before she returns. 

His true saving grace is the growing sound of the growl of an engine getting closer and closer. He wipes his face with his napkin before standing up. Anna’s looking out the window, trying to catch a glimpse of what could possibly be the source of such a sound. 

“What is that?” She’s clearly confused, they don’t get many visitors up here after all and the sight of her blue eyes, open big and wide, makes him grin. 

“That’ll be Cliff.” He stands to grab his hat from beside the kitchen door. 

“What’s that  _ sound? _ ” She’s hooked now, he can tell, but he knows he can really get her on the line nice and good. 

“It’s The Claw.” He leaves her without another explanation, knowing all he has to do is wait.. 

Sure enough she finds him out at the water pump, scooping a final sip of water into his mouth. 

“What are you doing with that thing?” He can see it now in the distance, behind the barn, it’s taller than any of the trees and nearly the barn itself. 

“You said you like to swim.” He doesn’t keep her waiting any longer. ”Dig you a hole, so in the summertimes, you and the children can go swimming.” 

He’s been planning this for a few weeks now, while he’s out working the field for long hours and between reading about Schliemman on his lunch. He’d been trying to think of a way to show her,  _ they want the best for us _ . He does too. 


	11. Anna's POV

“ _ Children?”  _ Anna’s left in the wake of the tidal wave Kristoff has crashed upon her. She’s not sure how to  _ swim _ out of this one. 

It’s a vague kind of thought that sits on the edge of her mind, their future. She finds she’s less opposed to it day by day, but they’ve known each other weeks and she doesn’t share his surety. 

He’d stood behind her, that morning. She’d felt his breath against the back of her neck. She thinks she can feel the prickle of it now and has to bring a hand there to chase the phantom feeling away. She doesn’t quite understand why she misses it when it’s gone. 

The sound of a car horn claims her attention and she turns to find a truckload full of her nieces and nephews. It’s a foriegn feeling to be an aunt still, but not an unwelcome one. 

“Aunt Anna!” Ruth’s yelling and waving through the open window. She’s out of the car before it even comes to a stop, running up the drive to see her. 

“Hi!” The girl reminds her of herself. They even share her tell tale red hair. 

“Hey! I hope you don’t mind us coming along. The boys couldn’t miss it.” Bulda comes around the side of the truck in denim’s of her own, wide and sweeping like a skirt. Anna will have to ask her about them later, she’ll be needing a pair for herself, or at least she will after the baby comes. 

“Rockwood.” She stops her middle child with a clap of her hands before he can run off after his brother who’s already long gone. Anna’s yet to meet them properly. 

“Not everyday someone digs a hole.” Bulda says with some mischief. 

“That one that just flew by here is my youngest, Soren, and this here is Rockwood.” She smiles big and proud. Rockwood seems happy enough to meet her, even if it does take his attention from The Claw. 

“Hello, Rockwood.” She gives him a dainty tip of her head. She can see he’s on his best manners, hands clasped behind his back, which stands straight and tall. He looks like he’s trying to imitate Kristoff, but he’s missing a few feet and a few pounds. 

“Hello, nice to meet you.” He has the heavy accent of the area, his ‘you’ coming out a bit more like a ‘cha’. He sounds no less the gentleman. 

“Nice to meet you.” Anna does her best not to laugh, but it carries in her voice. 

He smiles back and then turns to his mother and gives a nod. She nods back. Anna watches the interaction, watches Bulda, closely. She’s a woman who operates in the background, for all she’s loud and outgoing. Anna has no doubt she gave them a stern talking to before they left the house. 

“Do you like my hair?” Ruth asks shyly.

“You look lovely.” Anna gushes appropriately. It’s done up in a fashion reminiscent of her own. At least, Anna expects as much. It makes Anna a little bit embarrassed about the effort she puts into her appearance every morning.

“She asked me to do it up just like yours.” Bulda puts her hands on her daughter's shoulders from behind so she can catch Anna’s eye. She gives her a knowing look. Anna understands the weight of it. She wonders how Bulda feels, having her daughter look up to a woman who got pregnant out of wedlock. 

She hopes she and Ruth aren’t so similar after all. 

“Rockwood, honey! Keep a watch on your brother!” Bulda runs down the rise after them leaving Anna and Ruth to catch up. 

“Make sure he doesn’t get under that thing!” Bulda calls with an exasperated sigh. 

“Here Sven! Here boy!” Rockwood yells, completely oblivious to his mother’s cautions. 

“Get in there, Kristoff!” Cliff eggs him on. It’s a relief actually that Kristoff will be at the wheel. Not that Anna doesn’t think Cliff will be careful of the kids and animals underfoot, but well...she doesn’t  _ know  _ Cliff very well yet. She knows Kristoff. She trusts Kristoff. 

They find some large rocks out by the shed to sit on where they have a nice view. 

“So have you chosen a name for your baby?” Ruth pipes in with all the enthusiasm that only a teenage girl can possess. 

It stops Anna’s heart for a moment. She doesn’t know why she’d got it in her head Kristoff wouldn’t tell anyone. This is his sister’s family, he had a right to tell them if he wanted to. In truth, she hasn’t given any thought to announcing it to anyone. She never goes much of anywhere other than to church on Sunday so she’d just as well wait to start showing, than go around telling people. 

“Ruth!” Bulda bites. 

“Well, you told me that Uncle Kris and Aunt Anna were having a baby.” She doesn’t seem to understand what she’s done wrong. “Aren’t you?” 

Ruth’s old enough to know a bit of the ways of the world and Anna can see the sadness there as the poor thing imagines the worst. 

Anna nods, not keeping her in suspense any longer. She doesn’t want her to think she’s done anything wrong either. 

“I-I haven’t thought of a name yet.” She remembers being young, at sewing circles and card parties, listening to women talk about such things and looking on longingly. She indulges Ruth the way she never was now. 

“I like the name Patricia.” Ruth says with longing, like she’s reciting a sonnet. “My parents had to go and name me Ruth.” 

Ruth glowers fiercely at her mother, who only returns a light-hearted scoff, before going back to shielding her eyes from the sun while she watches real excitement. 

“Ruth is an old biblical name and a very beautiful one.” Anna says softly. She wonders, if things had been different, and her father still welcomed her into his home, would her child have been christened a strong biblical name too? 

“Thank you.” Bulda answers for a flustered Ruth. “Maybe now she’ll keep it!” 

It’s teasing and it brings the mood back up. 

In the distance the sounds of heavy machinery pick up and Anna turns to watch. Cliff’s standing off to the side waving his hat in his hand to direct Kristoff who doesn’t seem to be giving it much heed at all. 

“Boys get on!” He calls from the ground. “Move it on out of here, boys. Uncle Kris is at the wheel!” 

It’s quickly becoming evident that they have no idea what they are doing and just as quickly Anna’s concern is multiplying. 

“Bulda, did you grow up in this house?” She asks, quieter than she needs to, but not as quiet as she wants to. She gestures to the old shed, which is really an old one room building with a lean to built onto the back. 

“I did. My father built it.” She seems a bit anxious about it. Anna wonders if she really thinks so poorly of her that she believes she would judge her for it. 

“And before that, he and Grandma lived in a dugout. Which…” She searches the horizon before pointing off into the distance. “Is still over there in the south field.”

“Right?” She smiles at Ruth who nods eagerly back at her. 

“Really?” Anna’s still looking to the south. All of that history in one little place, for so many people. She can’t imagine it. She packed up her whole life and moved across the country and she doesn’t feel like she’s left behind any history at all. Yet for Bulda, even her children are tied to it. 

“So you’ve never lived anywhere else?” It doesn’t matter, her answer, not really. She suspects as much. She wants to know more about Kristoff and this place. She’s trying to find a history for her too. 

“Nope.” Bulda isn’t bothered by it. In fact, she seems proud. “Our younger brother Lars, he was the adventurous one.” 

She feels sorry for bringing it up now that she can see the scar lines that run through this family. 

They turn their attention to The Claw and the discomfort slips away on its own. Anna can’t hear everything the men are hollering at each other but they’ve finally managed to pick up a tiny pile of dirt and release it into the same spot. 

“What’s in your locket?” Ruth asks, her attention span not able to be occupied by their failures for long. 

Her hand goes to her neck defensively, perhaps to hide it, she realizes with a shameful blush. 

“Oh I forgot I was wearing it.” She plays it off with a laugh while she rearranges her collar. 

“Ruth, dear. Don’t pry.” Bulda admonishes. For a moment, Anna worries that she  _ knows _ , but her penetrating gaze moves past her. “It’s as if your mother didn’t teach you any manners.” 

The men finally seem to have figured out how to fill the bucket with dirt, a little too well it seems, because the carriage starts tipping, rocking with the motion, backwards and forwards. Anna, Ruth, and Bulda all stand at once to watch on with trepidation. Ruth, who isn’t able to watch from a distance any longer, rushes forward to get a closer look. 

“The lever on the left! On your left!” Cliff’s voice is ragged from the shouting. 

It makes her wonder why, if Cliff knows how to work the machine and got it all the way over here in the first place, is Kristoff at the wheel?

“Is there a manual for that thing?” She says through the hand at her mouth. 

“Well,” Bulda starts and Anna feels that she is about to impart great wisdom. “If there were, do you think that they would read it?” 

Bulda’s laughing and Cliff is whooping in the distance. It seems everybody is enjoying themselves except her. She can even make out Kristoff, grinning ear to ear behind the wheel. 

“I didn’t-I didn’t ask him to do that. To dig a swimming hole.” She certainly never asked him to put his  _ life  _ in danger. “I don’t know why he’s going through all the trouble.” 

Bulda leans around to get a good look at her face, searching there earnestly, as if for any sign of a clue at all. She does or doesn’t find what she’s looking for because she turns back to the newly forming hole. 

“He just wants to please you.” Bulda states. 

Anna wonders if it really is that simple. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A birthday and a dance and a subtle change.

Bulda’s birthday comes quicker than usual. Or at least it feels like it does. 

It’s the same thing every year. So he knows exactly what to expect. They reserve the fellowship hall and do it up and there would be music and dancing. Not to mention wherever Bulda is, good food tended to follow. Kristoff looks forward to it every year. More so this time around.

Kristoff also knows what to expect on the silent drives to Wilson. Which is why what she says next surprises him. They’ve just gotten in the car, like she thinks her saying it might make him change his mind. 

“I might not dance.” She says, defensive like, like she thinks he might argue with her. 

“Well, Bulda’ll just be glad we’re there.” He hadn’t expected her to, hoped maybe, but not expected. 

“She’s always been a fool for dancing.” He smiles at the memory of his sister, asking Cliff to the Sadie Hawkins. She spent weeks making him dance in the parlour by the fire, no matter how tired and sweaty he came in from the fields. Maybe he’s always been a fool for it a bit too, because of her. 

“Slim’s her favorite.” The band will have been rehearsing him for weeks getting ready for tonight. He couldn't shake his smile just thinking about it. 

“Don’t you ever wonder, what else is out there, beyond the farm?” Anna says and this time he is well and truly surprised. He isn’t even sure what to say, doesn’t have time to consider it. 

“Sometimes.” He thinks about the place where his brother had been killed. Sometimes he thinks he’d like to visit, see the last things his brother saw, the things he sent in his letters. He thinks about it more now, with her around, and reading about far away places. 

“Aren’t you curious how other people live?” He knows she’s a traveller. She has the same way about her as Lars. It’s in the way she looks at the horizon. He wonders if that’s all her life here is, a fascination with his family and his way of life. He wonders if it’ll wear off. 

“I enjoy a drive, but....I like coming back to my place. Sleeping on my land.” He wants to be able to show her that he is like her, but he knows he isn’t, he always wants to come back. She’s always running. 

“ _ Your land _ . It seems every war in human history is about owning the land.” She fiddled with the locket around her neck when she said it. It’s something she does when she is unhappy, dissatisfied with him or something he’s said. 

“I like the indian view-that we’re just temporary guardians of the land where we live.” He tries to be patient with her, but it feels an awful lot like criticism from where he’s sitting.

“It’s not temporary to me.” This had been his father’s home, and his mother’s home, and his home. Someday it would be his children's home too. 

“But your family’s owned this land for less than a hundred years. In the span of history that’s nothing.” Kristoff isn’t stupid. He knows the importance of history. He knows that knowing what you planted the season before and the season before that will tell you about the minerals in the soil. He knows that knowing who sired your cow will tell you how well it will produce. He even knows that storms in the oceans bring rain all the way this far inland to feed his crops. The world is connected and so is the past. 

He also knows that you can lose yourself to it, feeling so small, like the world moves on too quick without you. He’d nearly been left behind after Lars died. 

“In the span of a life...that’s near everything.” He says and they ride the rest of the way in silence. 

The place is already alive and buzzing when they pull up. Lights have been strung across the ceiling along with crepe streamers. All the tables have been pushed to the sides to make room for a large dance floor that’s filled to capacity. The band’s playing a lively beat.

“You’re next Bill!” Bulda’s calling over the music even before Kristoff has caught sight of her. He sees Ruth first, before she twirls off into the dancing bodies only to return through a parting sea with his sister. 

“Happy birthday.” Anna’s all demure smiles and politeness. 

“Hey Ray!” Cliff hollers, despite the closing distance between them, and Kristoff can’t help smiling. 

Not when Bulda has moved on from giving Anna a welcoming hug to giving him a positively bear like embrace. 

“Happy birthday, sis.” He hugs her back to keep from being bowled over. 

“Oh, finally. It’s not a party until you come!” He felt some of his inhibitions melt away. These people were his family just as much as Bulda and if she could accept Anna, so could they. 

“Come on, come on!” Bulda made a distracted attempt to herd them to the dance floor while looking for her husband. When she’d turned a full circle and looked eyes with him, falling naturally into his arms, “There’s my guy,” and off they went. 

Without Bulda to break the silence, they sat at one of the tables by themselves. The beat changed and Kristoff recognized the beat. He could feel the brush on the snare in his fingertips, like an itch. The fiddle and the bass joined in and soon the band is really going. 

“Kristoff, you really outta dance.” Anna says. 

He looks over at her and expects to see stern pity, but instead she looks amused. He likes it, even if he is somehow the subject of it. He turns back to the dance floor. 

“No, I’m fine really.” He’s in a better mood now, seeing she could enjoy herself here, maybe. Enjoy her time here with him, too. 

It sends an antsy energy through him and he knows he has the jitterbug. The itch to dance is too much to fully restrain. Maybe if he just tapped his toes? 

“Alright.” She sighs and sets her own hand down on the table. It looks so small next to his there, without any fancy gloves. He stills a hand he hadn’t realized he’d been moving to the beat and quickly rises to follow her lead. 

She’s standing, looking for all the world determined as an ox, waiting for him. 

“You sure?” He says as he takes one step closer, but she’s already pulling him into her arms and towards the crowd of dancers, where there is no turning back. 

“Alright.” He whispers, not wanting to spoil it. 

They move on different beats at first, he’s trying to give her as much space as possible. It’s awkward until he risks pulling her a little closer and she falls into step with him and then they’re swinging around the floor, Bulda and Rockwood and Soren all dancing together alongside them. 

Anna watches with stars in her eyes, head thrown back with laughter. 

Kristoff never wants it to stop. 

“We are here to celebrate a birthday.” A booming voice comes from onstage and the music quiets. “I’ve known this fine young lady. Since-since I was slim! Bulda, you’re a fine wife-” 

“I second that.” Cliff interjected. 

“A great mother. And you’re a first class friend.” Papi smiled down at them.

Bulda, with tears in her eyes, accepted the warm embrace of the family that surrounded her. 

For weeks Kristoff had that song stuck in his head, singing under his breath as he read on his lunch, _ The Excavation of Troy.  _


End file.
